Petition filed to stop brewery

View of the city skyline from the Hays Street Bridge on Friday, June 22, 2012. Alamo Beer Company is proposing to build a brewery at 803 North Cherry Street.

Photo By Mike Fisher

The City Council has approved incentives and a plan for Alamo Beer Co. to build its brewery near the Hays Street Bridge.

Photo By Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News

View of the city skyline from the Hays Street Bridge. Alamo Beer Company is proposing to build a brewery at 803 North Cherry Street. The city should learn a lesson from litigation involving land adjacent to the bridge.

Photo By Lake Flato Architects

Connection: The three-story brewery will connect to the non-historic on-ramp to Hays Street Bridge. It's proposed that about 3,000 square feet of space on the bridge will be used for seating that could accommodate about 200 people.

Photo By Lake Flato Architects

Beer Garden: There are plans to create a beer garden and public park space underneath Hays Street Bridge.

Photo By Courtesy of Eugene Simor

Eugene Simor's plans for the brewery next to the Hays Street Bridge are preliminary and under review. The first phase of the $5.7 million plan includes a 40-foot-tall, 20,000-square-foot brew house. A second phase could add 18,000 square feet.

Amy Unger, left/center, a planner with the Office of Historic Preservation, leads one of three groups across the Hays Street Bridge during the Eastside Running Tour.

Saturday, July 24 Bruce Martin (center), a volunteer tour guide for the day, talks about the Hays Street Bridge to participants in a three-mile run. About 45 people showed up for the run through the East Side near downtown, which offered a unique perspective of a struggling neighborhood that many people simply glimpse at on their way to Spurs games

A petition with more than 2,500 signatures submitted to the city Monday in an effort to derail a plan to build a brewery next to the historic Hays Street Bridge isn't expected to accomplish its goal.

The petition cites Texas Local Government Code 253.001, which states that with at least 1,500 signatures from registered voters, the conveyance of public parkland is subject to an election. The petition is aimed at an ordinance passed in August that approved the sale of 1.7 acres of city-owned land next to the Hays Street Bridge for the construction of a brewery for Alamo Beer Co.

But the city says the land isn't parkland.

“We feel strongly that City Council has made a mistake,” said Gary Houston, a petitioner who gathered Monday with about 30 other people on the steps of City Hall to deliver the documents. He added that he's not against the construction of the brewery but disagrees with its placement next to the bridge.

Petitioners claim that when the land was donated to the city, the original intent was to create a park there. The land was even listed as a future park in neighborhood plans and the city's master plan for the East Side, Houston added. It was the Hays Street Bridge Restoration Group that worked for years to have the historic bridge restored. And though the group had been working with the city to create an open public space there, the city went ahead and sold it.

“We don't want to acquiesce to that kind of betrayal,” Houston said.

The city was granted the land in 2007, but it has sat vacant since.

Despite the democratic exercise, City Attorney Michael Bernard said the petition won't achieve what it's intended to accomplish because the parcel was never added to the books at the city's Parks & Recreation Department. Nor does the deed list it as parkland.

“That provision that they're relying on applies only to the sale of parkland,” Bernard said. “This is not parkland. It never has been parkland. It's merely land that's owned by the city.”

The signatures as they were submitted “won't get them an election,” Bernard added.

The next step, Bernard said, is to notify the city clerk and recommend against an election regarding the matter.

In early August, the City Council approved a measure to sell the land at 803 Cherry St. to a developer for $295,000. In that same ordinance, the developer was granted about $800,000 in incentives for the $8 million project. Along with the brewery, the plan includes space for a tasting room, a restaurant, a beer garden under the bridge and a skywalk that will connect to the nonhistoric part of the bridge.

Eugene Simor, Alamo Beer Co.'s founder, said he's close to signing the deal for the land and expects to break ground in December.

Although the most recent effort looks like it will fail, Houston said the opposition won't give up.

“We're not dead in the water at this point, and I don't think we're treading water. But we need to obviously regroup,” Houston said.